NRTEE: pretend it never happened?

Environment Minister Peter Kent is not only defunding the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, but taking measures to make records of its work over the last 25 years more difficult for the public to access, including wiping out its website.

My colleague Ottawa South MP David McGuinty puts it this way, “They really want to extinguish even the name of the organization. It’s Orwellian … It’s like burning books, burning the names, (or pretending) it never happened. And that’s just ridiculous.”

Here is what Governor General David Johnston, first Chair of this advisory body, had to say about NRTEE:

“Our greatest achievement, in my view, was to develop a clear and comprehensive deﬁnition of sustainable development and to have legislation enacted that required acts of Parliament to meet the criteria of sustainability.”